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Google Pixel C review: too great for its own good

So-called 'pro' tablets, touchscreen consumption devices designed replace your laptop, are becoming a trend. Apple has one, Microsoft has one, and now Google has one in the Pixel C, its latest attempt to blend the purity of Android and substance of Chrome into a touchscreen laptop.

The Pixel C is the first tablet made and designed solely by Google for Android 6.0 Marshmallow, its latest mobile OS, and outwardly it has a purity that demonstrates the company's singular vision. It's stylishly made and looks professional with sleek lines and construction as solid as any laptop.

With a display of just 10.2 inches it's a small machine, looking very much like an all-allumniium netbook (remember those?) when attached to its keyboard in the closed position. It also looks like a Chromebook, complete with the multicoloured lights on the front of the case, but the overall effect is of quality and durability.

The Pixel C is a little heavy at 517g for the tablet alone (the iPad Pro is only 723g), and with the keyboard attached (which it more or less has to be, see below) it's a hefty 916g. It's also thicker than an iPad Mini at 7mm, though similar to the iPad Pro (6.9mm). The point? It's not the smallest or lightest device of its type in the world, but it's small enough and light enough to be genuinely portable.

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In terms of raw specs, the Pixel C impresses with a Nvidia Tegra X1 64-bit processor and Maxwell GPU, which is more than enough to handle the very best games in the Play store. With 3GB of RAM, a decent-enough camera on the front and back (2 and 8 megapixels respectively), stereo speakers and the added convenience of USB Type-C charging for its 10-hour battery. The Pixel C display is also good, with a resolution of 2560 by 1800 pixels -- that's 308 pixels-per-inch, more than the iPad Pro. With an excellent contrast ratio everything looks crisp and clear with rich colours and deep blacks.

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ByWIRED

The stand-out hardware feature is undoubtedly the keyboard. If you can get over the unusual way in which the Pixel C connects to the separate keyboard hardware -- you slide in horizontally, screen-up, then wait for it to click into place and lift up the screen which is now held in place by a remarkably strong magnet and hinge -- you'll start to enjoy the precision and clarity of the keys. Without a trackpad, you lack some of to day-to-day usability of a laptop (or a Microsoft Surface) but it blows Apple's iPad Pro keyboard away, ending up closer to a third-party iPad Mini keyboard like the Brydge (though it's not backlit). The Pixel C also knows when you're using it and when you're not -- there are no mystifying pop-ups of the on-screen keyboard when it's in laptop mode -- and charges the keyboard from your tablet without a cable.

Taken together this adds up to an impressive piece of hardware. The trouble is what you do with the thing once you've stopped admiring it: though the Pixel C is decent as a media device and maybe even a games machine, it's an Android laptop in all but name and that presents serious issues.

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Google's own suite of web-focused apps is pretty good these days (the new 'research in Docs' integration with Google search is a nice addition) and there are certain key suites like Office available for the platform. But Android still lacks the few custom-built, screen-specific apps that really make such devices work (Paper by 53 for iPad, for example). And that it also lacks the adaptability of Windows.

Gallery: Google Pixel C review: too great for its own good

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Most modern web users spend 90 percent of their time in Chrome anyway, but it's hard to make a compelling case for Android as a laptop operating system. As a Chromebook with more flexibility and app options, it's a good choice.

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The other issue is cost. The Pixel C and keyboard will run you £399 for the 32GB version and £479 for the 64GB, plus another £119 for the keyboard. That's competing with iPads and even the lowest-specced Surface 3, and doesn't include active pen/pencil/stylus support which -- depending on your use case -- really make both of those other products stand out.

The Pixel C feels as much like a curiosity as it does a solution, and given the lack of truly compelling software it's hard not to see it as something that a few people will love, but the vast majority will ultimately decide. In a market where an iPad Mini 2 can be had for just over £200 with only a few compromises in terms of display quality and power, it's hard to recommend except to the Android hardcore and people with a fetish for really nicely designed magnetic hinges.